Some months ago I built my new silent rig... which is currently not silent at all! I wanted to swap the awful stock cooler for something more quiet and effective. In the first place I have taken into account the possibility to mount the old cooler, a Thermaltake Sonic Tower, which is not well regarded here in SPCR forum, but I found it to be not so bad for my old downvolted Sempron. Now that I have switched to a i5-3570K there's no way to adapt the mounting attachment and moreover I guess the power would be beyond the dissipation capabilities of the Sonic Tower. So I am evaluating which is the way to go while keeping both costs and noise low. The case is an Antec P183 V3, so I guess there's enough room in it to fit whatever the cooler I would end with.Please take into account that I live in Europe, thus the price of the heat sinks should be different with respect to what you can find somewhere else. I am currently considering these options:

I will be very glad to add something else to the list and I look forward to any suggestion that would help to make up my mind.I wouldn't go too much beyond 50€ (65USD, nowadays), so I have already dropped some other options like the Thermalright HR-02 Macho (~62€) and the Noctua NH-U12P SE2 (~60€). I think top-down solutions wouldn't be the way, for the P183 top and back fans next to the heat sink would ruin the air flow.

You could also buy a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO. Cooler Master fans haven't been known to be the best but you can always try out the stock fan. If it doesn't perform well then you can buy a Scythe Slipstream 120 mm PWM and replace the stock fan.

If the Thermalright Macho is available, I would recommend that. It seems to be a good cooler and the fan is really good in terms out noise. There is a smaller 120 version available, although I don't believe it's stock fan is regarded nearly as quiet.

If the Thermalright Macho is available, I would recommend that. It seems to be a good cooler and the fan is really good in terms out noise. There is a smaller 120 version available, although I don't believe it's stock fan is regarded nearly as quiet.

The Macho is really a well regarded heat sink, but it is a little bit beyond my budget.

kuzzia wrote:

There's also the Scythe Mugen 3 which has a fan that's very quiet if you have good PWM controlling.

I know Scythe is a company which is nowadays less popular than in the past years, and I do not understand if its coolers are good compared to the Thermalright and Prolimatech solutions. I have added the Mugen to the list, but what about the Ninja? Is it any good? Is it up to the old Ninjas in terms of quality and performances? It's difficult to make a comparison, but which is the best one if I have to choose between the Thermalright True Spirit 120m and the Ninja, or the Mugen? The first one seems to be quite an effective solution, despite being really cheap somewhere outside Italy compared to both Scythe's. I'd pay ~47€ for the Mugen, and ~45€ for the Ninja; quite a funny marketing strategy to price different products the same... however, are the Scythe coolers worth the major price? The same question can be asked about the Prolimatech Panther.

The Macho Rev. A currently sells for under 40 Euros in Germany. Rev.A is the same old Macho with an updated fan, that is the same fan as before but in black-and-white and not green. The original Macho has since skyrocketed in price because nobody really has it in stock anymore.

At 40 Euro, the Macho is easily the best bang for the buck. Not just, but especially for the silent-minded.

Unluckily, yes: that's the best price I have found here in Italy, where I find Thermalright products to be quite expensive. It would cost me less if I buy it abroad and pay for the international shipment (46€+7€)!

Provided you have enough clearance inside the case (and that depends on your motherboard and socket), I think that the Thermalright HR-02 Macho would be the best solution, if it comes cheap in your country. A cheaper and effective solution would be the Thermalright True Spirit 120M.

I have an Xigmatek Gaia that has impressed me pretty well but its not on an i5.

For the i5 I'm building, I'm going to try an S1284 something or another. It was an lga775 cooler that is kind of obsolete now but Xigmatek makes a bracket for lga1156/55 so I'm giving it a shot since I found the cooler in the discount bin.

The reason for trying this is that the 1284 has 4 staggered heat pipes compared to the Gaia's 3 pipes that are all in line. Four seems better than three and it seems like lined up heat pipes might create a boundary layer around the second and third pipe which would make them less efficient.

As a matter of completeness I add the "new" Scythe Mugen 4 to the list, which actually seems to be the bang for the buck cooler. Moreover it is slightly lower in height than the Macho and so it would fit well inside the Antec P183.

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